The IMF / Wikimedia
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called on Russia and Ukraine to come to the table on a $3 billion eurobond, according to an IMF spokesman.
"The IMF encourages both sides to engage in constructive discussions on the restructuring of this bond to provide the necessary financing for the program being supported by the IMF in Ukraine and to help restore debt sustainability," Director of the IMF's Communications Department Gerry Rice said at a briefing in Washington on Thursday.
"Ukraine has remained current on this bond [worth $3 billion, held by Russia] as on all other eurobonds," he said.
Russia has refused to take part in debt restructuring talks with Ukraine aimed at plugging a $15 billion funding gap under an IMF-led $40 billion bailout program.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine's restructuring perimeter includes a loan which was given to Ukraine under agreements between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The loan was granted on December 2013 in exchange for a $3 billion eurobond. The fact that the bonds were purchased via the Irish stock exchange makes the disbursement a private creditor debt. However, the Russian side insists that this is an interstate debt, as the buyer was the state-owned National Wealth Fund. Ukraine added the $3 billion eurobond to the sovereign and sovereign-guaranteed bonds to be restructured, but Russia reiterated it did not see the debt as commercial.
The IMF announced it would soon decide on changing its policy to allow lending to countries in arrears to official creditors, a move that would aid Ukraine in the debt dispute with Russia.
The fund is discussing "reforms that would allow the fund to lend in the presence of arrears to official bilateral creditors in carefully circumscribed circumstances," Rice said.